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Does Israel Run US Foreign Policy? | MIC 16

Let me preface this by saying again that I’m not any kind of Israel expert, but I figured I should talk a bit more about the claim at the end of today’s video, that Israel has helped reduce its neighbors to smoking ruins. The question of Israel’s role in the run-up to the Iraq war is controversial, but the consensus seems to be that they were very much for Bush’s invasion, and did what they could to promote it. The current Israeli government’s almost gleeful support for the destruction of Syria is less controversial. Israel is officially neutral, but in 2017 they conceded that they had carried out around 100 airstrikes against Syrian and Hezbollah targets over the course of the war, and they have acted as a stumbling block to the peace process.

I think this is all a terrible mistake. This policy of aiding in the destruction of Iraq and Syria might have made sense during the Cold War. It would have been vicious then, but it would at least have had some justification. During that era, when they were faced with the opposition of a vastly better armed Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as the opposition of the Soviet Union, taking these sorts of actions would have been rational. Israel’s current leadership still acts as if they face this sort of existential threat. They don’t. And the world knows it. The desperately promoted threat from Iran is virtually nonexistent. The policies against Iraq and Syria that Israel supported did give Iran more power on the ground in these countries, but Israel remains free to bomb them at will in Syria. Most of Iran’s weapons systems date back to the Shah. Iran has made some limited progress with missile technology, but the use of that technology would quickly result in a complete roll-back of Iranian power in the region, and no doubt the destruction of multiple Iranian and Syrian cities by the Israeli and US air forces.

The Soviet Union is gone. Egypt and Jordan are now Israeli allies, and amazingly Saudi Arabia, if still officially hostile, is now largely seen as an Israeli ally as well. The international Palestinian terrorist threat of yore has been almost completely neutralized. It has been co-opted by the Palestinian Authority, and it has been fairly comprehensively rooted out of its old homes in Lebanon and Jordan. With the fences and walls around Gaza and the West Bank, the threat of a third Intifadah is largely meaningless. Palestinians would die in their thousands, in return for a few miles of burned Israeli farms. Netanyahu and company seem to think they are now secure enough to treat the Palestinians any way they want. This is a terrible mistake.

Despite all Israel’s protestations, the world, outside of Washington, DC, can now clearly see that it is more secure than it has ever been. All 21st century wars are media wars, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is even more so than others. Netanyahu’s behavior makes it look, even to Israel’s most natural allies, like Israel is THE destabilizing element in the region. Much of Israel’s support in the world, and in the US in particular, is based on the perception that the country is a plucky underdog. Killing Palestinians by the thousand, with the support of former enemies like Egypt, while increasing security cooperation with Saudi Arabia, does not fit that image. As today’s video says, Israel’s current leadership serves the interest of US defense contractors, not the interests of Israel.

Hey there. Today we’re going to ask a very important question. Is US Foreign Policy controlled by Israel?

This theory gets a lot of play. I’d say at least once a day, often multiple times a day, somebody in my YouTube comments posts some variation of this theory. Sometimes it’s advanced in a rational way, but more often it’s put in belligerent anti-semitic terms.

I get these comments so often that I’ve put together a Medium post on Israel and Antisemitism that I post rather than responding to each comment individually. I think it’s very worth reading if you’re interested, I’ll put a link in the description below. To be clear, no, US foreign policy is not a Zionist plot, Netanhayu is not calling the shots, and the US government is not doing the bidding of the sinister puppet masters at AIPAC. Though I see why people get this impression.

As I’ve said before I’m not ready to fully dive in to the issue of Israel and Palestine just yet. I’m conflicted and I need to do a lot more reading. But it’s blindingly obvious that Israel is a source of instability in the Middle East. I support Israel and its continued existence, but it’s clear that if it wasn’t there, the Middle East would be a much healthier place. Every crappy Middle Eastern ruler for the past 70 years has used Israel as an excuse to abuse their own people. So people wonder why the United States is so committed to supporting Israel. Doesn’t it make getting MIddle East oil harder?

People see this and assume that Israel’s hardline leaders must be running the show. They’re not. It’s the complete opposite in fact. There are many, many reasons why the US supports Israel so firmly, that I hope to get into eventually, but at the end of the day it’s about money, pure and simple. Israel’s hardline leadership makes a ton of money for US investors and workers.

This is about what I call the metastasized Military Industrial Complex. It’s not about just the iron triangle between congressmen, military contractors and the Pentagon anymore. I recommend you watch our full series on the topic. Put briefly, this complex has spread like a cancer over the past 75 years. There are now tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people across the US and the world whose livelihoods depend on the US defense department. This decades old project of war socialism is the biggest jobs program in world history. And it all depends on instability.

If you know this 75 year history, then the true role of Israel’s current leadership becomes very clear. They are just one part of a much longer term project. Ask yourself, what was the Zionist interest in the US destruction of South East Asia in the 1960s and 1970s? What was the Zionist interest in the CIA’s attempt to destroy Latin American Democracy in the 1970s and 1980s? Where is the Zionist interest in the Pentagon’s accelerating militarization of Africa today? Where is the Zionist interest in creating a Saudi and Emirati empire in Yemen? The answer to all these questions is that there isn’t one.

The only through line to US foreign policy is feeding the Military Industrial Complex. We need instability to feed the beast with outsize military budgets. Israel’s hardline leadership is an important part of this strategy, but they’re not calling the shots. They’re just the latest in a long line of stooges that help us do the job.

It’s not Israel’s interests that are being served here. Turning Israel’s neighbors into smoking ruins does not serve the long-term health and stability of the Zionist project. Those countries will recover eventually, just as Lebanon did, and it’s not like they’re going to have Israel’s best interests at heart when they do. The current Israeli leadership works for the US government, not the other way around.

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